Outsourcing is the practice of having designated job functions done outside a company, instead of having a department or employee doing these functions for us.
All types of functions can be outsourced to a company or an individual. The most recurrent outsourced activities include customer service, tech support, document processing, IT, sales, recruiting, marketing, and/or data management. When a company considers outsourcing customer service through phone calls, it can mark the beginning of a great time and money saver experience, one that most brands favor and use recurrently.
Outsourcing your calls can help increase business hours, improve brand connection and image, and create a favorable experience for customers, all while keeping your own staff on point and focused on the company’s strengths and weaknesses to continue to work solely at increasing overall performance.
Why outsource phone call attention?
1. To Focus on your customers
Phone calls can be a major interruption to any task, you would need an approximated 30 minutes to focus back on the task you were doing after attending a phone call, and sometimes we are so busy that calls can be missed, leaving your customers with the wrong impression of your company.
Some services and functions of your business need focus on details to be successful, major interruptions or lack of focus can damage your company’s efforts and even important calls can be a distraction from the essential functions.
Missed phone calls are more harmful to any business than we commonly imagine, and should not be disregarded. Having the advantage of a phone answering service will make a lasting impression with customers, who will benefit and appreciate a timely, useful response, giving them a sense of importance when they will feel understood and taken care of.
2. To Focus on your strengths
There are not many types of businesses where phone calls are one of their core strengths besides Customer service. Phone calls are part of any business but not many job functions are designated to have them as one of their main responsibilities.
You need to have specific qualities to answer a phone call correctly, and organizing skills to manage all the information received from those phone calls.
One of the main reasons companies outsource more and more everyday is that BPO companies will provide better applied resources, experience and highly qualified agents to take care of the task, possibly even more effectively than you would on your own. You want to make sure there will be no more lost calls, frustrating wait times for customers or missed feedback.
When you outsource one of your business activities to a BPO, you are guaranteed to have skilled manpower working for you to achieve a direct and solid communication channel with your customers.
3. To Accomplish more
By outsourcing your company’s calls, your team can apply their time to achieving more specific job functions, increasing productivity and focusing on growth opportunities without neglecting customers you rely on.
The service provider or BPO company can help you achieve more. If you have a business that provides services or products worldwide, your customers may speak different languages and need attention in different time zones. This is where the BPO comes in handy, as they can offer your customers 24/7 phone call attention and issue resolution in different languages and without sacrificing quality service.
Outsourcing non-core activities to a BPO company allows a business to be far more flexible; it also helps you to adapt to environment changes faster.
How can I start?
If you are looking to outsource any core functions to a call center, you need to search for expertise, dedication, agent’s capabilities and data management.
The phone answering service you hire needs to be able to handle all types of calls from customer service to support calls, they need to be able to provide quality information regarding your company and give feedback to the company in a proficient way. Location can also influence your decision, as you should partner with a company that makes you feel close and provides you with useful feedback.
Remember to take into account the BPO capacity to create a clear communication channel with your company, because you need to be able to share and transfer to their agents your points of view, strategies, brand personality, tone and angles you feel work best. These agents and associates ultimately will be part of your brand’s image.
Understanding your business is key to making the right decisions regarding which functions to outsource for your company, and always keep in mind that having professionals taking care of your trivial and daily functions will help you provide a more professional, reliable service to your customers.
